The Bride Wore Starlight (10 page)

“Okay.”

He squeezed her hands and set them back in her lap. “I don't suppose I cleared up the bad blood. But I did learn that I admire you. You're strong.”

For the first time in long minutes her eyes flashed to life.

“You know what I hate more than anything? Platitudes and patronizing. So stop it.”

He held up his hands in surrender. “You're right. I am sounding like a kindergarten teacher. Fine. Buck up, Joely Crockett. Get out of your wheelchair seat and get a life.”

He grinned at her wide eyes. She didn't look happy, but she didn't look like a lost kitten either.

“I hate you a little bit,” she said.

“Good. Passion.”

A small sound, a little like a snort, made its way from her throat. Alec started toward the door. “Want me to put the chicken away?”

“No.”

“Okay.” He turned. “One thing before I go. Tell me the top three things on that list you're going to make.”

“What?”

“What do you want to do next?”

“Want or have to?”

“Sometimes they're the same.”

“Get you out the door.” She hid the tiniest of smiles. “Sign the papers.”

“Excellent.”

“And find the impossible new place to live.”

“Easy one.” He continued to the door. “Come and live with me.”

“Aren't you hilarious?” Her cheeks flushed with full color again, and the blue in her eyes had blossomed back into a deep sapphire. She was watching his gait as he moved away. Good. She wasn't shying from the idea of his missing leg—she was curious. “Not in this galaxy or the next, Cowboy.”

He wiggled his brows. “Okay. See you in the one beyond that.”

A
LEC PULLED INTO
the garage of the L-shaped, ranch-style house he'd closed on less than a month before. Knowing he owned the place still awed him, although some days he wondered what had possessed him to leap so quickly into a more or less permanent spot, in a town that would only remind him every day of what he didn't want to do anymore.

The only answer was Gabe Harrison. Now that they were no longer CO and soldier, or mentor and mentee, Gabe was a good friend. When he'd turned Alec on to a perfect, decent-paying but mindless job that could lead to other opportunities but held no pressure, Alec had been hard pressed to say no. Pressure was no longer his thing. And then he'd seen this place and he'd been sold. No apartment building would have allowed his freakishly large dog, and the house had been finished and upgraded to perfection before the owners had defaulted on their mortgage. So, it had been affordable and, most important of all, the half-acre yard was fenced. Rowan the moose-dog was thrilled.

The instant he touched the garage-to-house doorknob, Rowan's thumping-bass woof resounded and her big nails clacked along the hardwood floor as she trotted to meet him. He braced himself and wondered randomly if Joely's required-by-genetics love of dogs would extend to a lummox like the one he lived with. She was friendly, loyal, and wouldn't hurt a rabbit. She was also six five when she stood on her back legs. Something the dog did too often.

A lot of people who claimed to be dog lovers cowered when they met shaggy, massive Rowan.

He pushed open the door and spread his arms, priming himself as he did every day to catch the hair-covered cannon ball that launched itself at his chest. Her front paws landed on his shoulders, and her cool, wet nose nudged his neck, cheek, ear, and eyes, looking for hello kisses. Alec scratched the sides of her head and nuzzled her, finally pushing her to the ground once she'd had a plenty good greeting.

“Hullo, Dum-ro, I was just talking about you.”

Rowan backed away once she'd assured herself he was home to stay. She trotted toward his back deck door and waited.

“The girl I was with said you sounded ‘interesting.' I don't think she imagines you as very cute, so she's going to have to meet you and get straightened out. What do you say?”

The visit with Joely hadn't gone as he'd planned. He didn't regret a single thing he'd said to her, and he was relieved to have the prosthetic reveal out of the way. He hadn't planned on the night being such a thorough onslaught, though. Getting her to see him again was going to take some fancy talking. Fortunately he was pretty good at bullshit.

There was one problem. He wasn't bullshitting when it came to Joely. From the start he hadn't been able to think of her with the same casual insouciance he did most women. There'd been no meaningless flirting on his part—at least, not after the first five minutes of talking to her. And she definitely hadn't flirted with him, so he hadn't had to feign interest the way he'd had to do with, say, that woman Heidi.

He let Rowan out the back door and stepped out after her.

No. From those first moments, when he'd found Joely alone in her family's dining room, his interest had been genuine. It wasn't like him. He hadn't let himself analyze why.

“C'mon, Rowan. C'mon, girl. Bring it here!”

The giant dog was snuffling around her favorite ball and knew full well what “bring it here” meant. For the moment, however, she ignored him. Alec rubbed his thigh above the prosthetic and imagined removing the socket and sleeve sooner rather than later. He could almost always go an entire day and be fine, but once in a while he had a day where it took nothing to get the leg and its stump aching and burning with pain. It had taken all his grit to walk normally out of Joely's little apartment.

Pride. Sometimes it was stupid, but most of the time it served him well.

Joely Crockett needed a little more pride and a little less self-pity.

It was funny, though. Her self-pity didn't extend to purposefully making other people wait on her. She seemed able to embrace her solitude until she could hitch a ride on other peoples' plans. He'd decided she was no diva. She'd simply lost who she'd been before the accident.

A soggy, stained softball hit his right foot, and Rowan wiggled her body in front of him like a hairy exotic dancer. Alec laughed again. She'd give him five or six good retrieves before her interest was exhausted. They had these ten minutes of undisciplined exuberance each time he returned home, and then his beast turned into the world's most talented couch potato. For as big and fast as she could be, she was quite a medium-energy dog.

After the fifth ball toss, Rowan let the ball lie where it landed and started her routine mosey around the yard. Five minutes later Alec let her in the house and handed her a giant bone biscuit, which she accepted with enthusiasm and took to the middle of the living room floor to crunch with surprisingly ladylike dignity.

It was only seven thirty, and since he hadn't ended up eating much with Joely, he searched his cupboard, found a can of disgustingly wonderful Beefaroni, and popped the easy-open lid. While it nuked, he grabbed two pieces of bread—whole wheat, his only concession to nutrition—and smeared them both with peanut butter. When the microwave dinged he grabbed a beer, the local craft brew he'd decided beat Budweiser all to hell, took his bowl, sandwich, and brew to the den off the living room and sat.

Beefaroni and beer with his dog. Not as pleasurable as fried chicken with a beautiful woman but still satisfying in a knuckle-dragging bachelor kind of way. He'd long ago accepted that social refinement wasn't his strong suit. Proof: he should have picked up steak and strawberries and champagne for Joely. Maybe that would have been more impressive.

He settled into the couch and put his leg up. Resting it gave him enough relief that he decided he could scarf down the food before changing clothes and taking off the prosthetic.

Tough. Yeah, he was such a tough guy. Too damn lazy to move any more, at least at the moment, was closer to the truth. He was tired.

And, after half the Beefaroni and half the bottle of beer were gone, he knew he was also mildly depressed. Maybe he did regret a little bit the way he'd gone after Joely.

No. You know you needed the same kind of tough love three years ago. Somebody had to do it for her.

But still. You got more flies with honey. She was a girl—you had to be more gentle than with a stubborn, angry cowboy.

She's tough. I can tell by . . .

By how? He frowned to himself. What made him think he knew her so well?

Call her.

Oh no. He wasn't going to be one of those panty-waist guys. He wasn't needy. He did what had to be done.

Tell her you're sorry you got tough with her. That you know she'll be just fine. That—

His cell phone ringing halted the argument with himself. For one second his heart gave a hopeful skip. Maybe thinking of her had conjured a call from Joely. It took only one second more to realize that was ridiculous on its face and another second to answer without checking the caller ID.

“Alec Morrissey,” he said.

“Well, slap my ass with a junk yard saddle. It is you, you one-legged freak. Where the hell have you been?”

The voice stunned him nearly into silence.

“Vince?” he asked. “Damn, is that you?”

“Me and about ten more pounds since I saw you last. Holy shit, man, it's good to hear your voice. Do you know how long I've been looking for you?”

A little guilt and a great deal of regret sliced quickly through Alec's gut. Aside from his cousin, Buzz, Vince Newton had been his best friend within the rodeo community since high school. A bull rider to Alec's bronc rider, Vince had always complemented Alec's talents and vice versa. For a season, after Buzz had decided to re-up for a second tour in Iraq and Alec couldn't get his butt out of the Middle East fast enough, he and Vince had tried to start something new—a partnership in team roping that would lead them into other events and competition for all-round honors. But Vince wasn't a roper, and the stress of trying to be what they weren't had strained their friendship. They'd both dropped the idea like nuclear waste and so rescued their relationship.

They'd stayed close until Alec had made his own insane trip back into the belly of the Iraqi beast and come home one limb lighter with a chip on his shoulder the size of a bomb blast. He'd let a lot of things slip away while creating his new life.

“Oh man, so long. It's been three years at least. My fault, totally, I admit it. How'd you find me now?”

“I live in the area, too, bro'. Came back about a year ago. I happened to hear your name in town the other day, and someone said you'd moved just outside of Jackson. I just dug until someone was willing to give up your number.”

“Aw, hell, Vince, that's great. I'm glad you did. So where are you?”

“East, about fifteen miles out of Jackson. Got me a little spread—forty acres. I'm raising some bucking bulls and breeding some broncs. Got me some chickens, some dogs, and a kid.”

“A what? What the devil are you talkin' about, boy?”

“Remember that cute little bunny used to hang around us—Wendy?”

“ 'Course I do.”

“I married her. Then I knocked her up—in the right order and with her permission, I might add.”

“No way! You son of a gun.”

Alec grinned to himself. Vince had never been the best-looking cowboy on the circuit, but he'd certainly had more than enough charisma to make up for it. If their circle of friends had been a high school class, Vincent Newton would have been voted “Most Likely to Date Every Girl on the Planet and Never Marry.”

“Yeah. Nobody believed it when it happened.”

“How the mighty have fallen.”

“Nah. You'll never get me to admit that. I've got me a little girl name of Olivia Beatrice who thinks I'm a hundred feet tall.” Pride, so thick Alec could have grabbed it from the line and spread it on bread, oozed from Vince's voice.

“A little girl,” Alec said. “That's fantastic. I hope she looks like Wendy.”

“Jerk. She does.”

His old friend's chuckle warmed him. Alec rubbed the inside of his left knee. “It's great to hear you so happy. You still riding at all?”

There was a slight pause. “Some. Mostly low-level stuff. A little individual calf roping.”

“What? You suck at that.”

“Yeah, but I gotta tell you. It's damn hard climbing on the back of a bull when you've got a sixteen-month-old whose mama is teaching her to pray Daddy comes home safely. Shakes your sense of immortality.”

“Huh.” Alec snorted in appreciation. “I never took you for a smart man, Newton. Did a bull finally throw you hard enough to knock some sense into your head?”

“Nope. Roped and hog-tied by the love of two good women.”

“Okay—enough. I don't want hear anymore girlie-novel shit come out of that mouth. Let's leave it at I'm happy for you.”

“And that leads me into one reason I called. I'm hoping you've had time to get back into the scene again. You figure out that gimp leg of yours enough to get back on a horse?”

Alec's throat squeezed shut and a pain in his chest he hadn't felt in a year throbbed like a fresh wound. He'd known rodeo would catch back up with him sooner or later. He'd known this was a dangerous place to settle. In his deepest heart, however, he'd believed he'd had time to brace for impact.

“I've been on a horse.” He managed to push the words past the fist squeezing his larynx. “Just no bucking ones.”

“So . . . you're trying to tell me I won the bet.”

“There was no bet, butthead. I told you—”

“You told me you'd ride that horse one day or die trying.”

“That horse” was a blue roan appaloosa gelding, sweeter than a day at your grandma's unless a person even thought about putting weight on its back. A saddle blanket on that animal's back would flip the switch that turned him into the embodiment of his name: Ghost Pepper.

“I wimped out of that bet. I admitted it. I accept it.”